Microsoft is now submerging servers into liquid baths
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Microsoft is starting to submerge its servers in liquid to improve their performance and energy efficiency. A rack of servers is now being used for production loads in what looks like a liquid bath. This immersion process has existed in the industry for a few years now, but Microsoft claims it’s “the first cloud provider that is running two-phase immersion cooling in a production environment.”
The cooling works by completely submerging server racks in a specially designed non-conductive fluid. The fluorocarbon-based liquid works by removing heat as it directly hits components and the fluid reaches a lower boiling point (122 degrees Fahrenheit or 50 degrees Celsius) to condense and fall back into the bath as a raining liquid. This creates a closed-loop cooling system, reducing costs as no energy is needed to move the liquid around the tank, and no chiller is needed for the condenser either.
ExtremeTech
Microsoft Dunks Servers Into Boiling Fluid to Cool Them Off By Joel Hruska on April 6, 2021 at 2:24 pm
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Microsoft has been exploring innovative ways to cool its data center servers for some years now. In the past, the company has previously made waves for its offshore data center cooling using seawater via its Project Natick. Now, it’s showing off a two-phase liquid cooling solution it says enables even higher server densities.
The new system uses a non-conductive cooling fluid. Microsoft doesn’t precisely identify it, but it sounds similar to 3M’s Novec 1230, with a very low boiling point around 122F (Novec 1230 boils at 120.6F). Boiling off the coolant creates a vapor cloud, which rises and contacts a cooled condenser at the top of the tank lid. The liquid then rains back down into the closed-loop server chassis, resupplying the systems with freshly cooled coo
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Dec. 22, 2020 5:00 a.m. PT
Microsoft has wrapped up a two-year experiment testing the sustainability of underwater data centers. And the results suggest our data could lie under the sea in the not too distant future.
In the spring of 2018, team members from Project Natick deployed a massive tube filled with nitrogen in 117 feet of water off Scotland s Orkney Islands. Inside were racks of running computer servers that team members monitored for the next two years. They wanted to see if a controlled environment, free of corrosive oxygen and humidity, as well as bumps and shakes from human interaction, increased server reliability.
OTTAWA, Dec. 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) The global
size was valued at US$ 9.79 billion in 2019.
Data center cooling solutions are frequently adopted by the data center operators in order to maintain a permissible temperature limit for its smooth operations. Data centers are needed to work efficiently all the time to process large amount of data. While processing of data, the equipment at data center dissipates heat energy that triggers the need for cooling solutions to prevent the equipment from getting overheated or damaged. In general, two types of cooling systems are used frequently that are water-based and air-based. Within air-based cooling solution, air is circulated through the data center for maintaining the temperature range. Whereas, water-based cooling solution is again segregated into water-cooled racks and immersion cooling where liquid coolants are used to maintain the permissible temperature range.
size was valued at US$ 9.79 billion in 2019.
Data center cooling solutions are frequently adopted by the data center operators in order to maintain a permissible temperature limit for its smooth operations. Data centers are needed to work efficiently all the time to process large amount of data. While processing of data, the equipment at data center dissipates heat energy that triggers the need for cooling solutions to prevent the equipment from getting overheated or damaged. In general, two types of cooling systems are used frequently that are water-based and air-based. Within air-based cooling solution, air is circulated through the data center for maintaining the temperature range. Whereas, water-based cooling solution is again segregated into water-cooled racks and immersion cooling where liquid coolants are used to maintain the permissible temperature range.